This is a question that I started exploring much more intently while living in Malawi, Africa in 2009-2010. Living in Africa causes one to return to the basics of living and surviving, which is why this question emerged for me. Business in Africa for most people is a simple means of survival. Buy $1 worth of tomatoes, sell them for $2 and feed my family the next day off of the $1 of profit. This simplistic view of business was one of the factors the led me to rethink my entire paradigm of business. (I could probably write a whole book about my business learnings in Africa, but I'll keep it brief for now.) I began reading, networking and exploring a new paradigm for the objectives of business. This learning continued as I returned back to the US the summer of 2010, but I didn't have a very practical way for it to be applied until the summer last year when I started my own business.
As I've moved down the path of starting my own business, I've been blessed to have people around me that have served as advisers and offered up their experience from which I could learn. As I've sought out advice from these people the question, "what's your business' purpose(s) or objective(s)?" has continued to surface. A few things that I've learned about the purpose of business:
- I've learned that if I/you can't answer this question (or aren't seeking the answers to this question), then we probably shouldn't be running our own business/organization.
- I've learned that if making money is my/your only objective for our business, then we will never be satisfied with our business endeavors.
So over the last few months my business partner and I have developed the purposes of Torrent Consulting and in the coming blog posts I will share these purposes. They aren't über polished or word-smithed very intensely, but I'll share them and maybe you'll find them helpful.
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